The Last Days of Leonard Cohen

You can see it two ways;

     there’s Leonard Cohen the Canadian hero

surrounded by honours and dignities

     feted by the Establishment

all singing ‘Hallelujah’ and commiserating

     about the Nobel Prize.

Then there’s Leonard all alone

     in his shabby room in the Tower of Song,

hearing the words of his own heroes

     leaking through to him amid

the unpainted walls and the scattered pills,

     the claustrophobia of despair.

The narratives clang and clash;

     they are uncoordinated, they lack

rhythm and symmetry despite his lifelong efforts

     to provide life with metre and form,

the taped cross over the heart, from Hydra

     to Mount Baldy to betrayal.

But the sun still pours down like honey

     on Our Lady of the Harbour, and nothing

can sing as sweet as a bird on a wire

     and these last days, these days of last things

are still days of grace and delight,

     where wild hyacinths enjoy the rain.